Children who have trouble in school, are frequently hyperactive, have attention deficit disorders or anti-social behaviors usually end up in the Court systems.

The number of juveniles getting into trouble seem to increase each year an the Juvenile Court system.

The number of adults in prison are increasing yearly despite increasing numbers which are paroled early to make room for more.

Men who are serving life sentences in prison or are waiting on death row report that the things which they all seem to have in common is that they had a bad infancy and were frequently abused or neglected and learned to fend for themselves at an early age; usually stole at an early age and continued a life of crime after becoming outcasts in school.

Children whose parents read to them, sing to them, talk to them in full sentences, expose them to soft music develop their brains to their full potential and usually earn better grades in school, are better adjusted, and are more successful in life and with their careers and families.

When infants are exposed to neglect, alcohol, drugs, violence or domestic abuse, they perceive these habits as “normal” and mimic them later in life.

The last 10 years has recently been named the “Decade Of the Brain” due to the fact that there has been more research and discovery about the brain and how it develops and functions during the last ten years that during all of the time of the world before now!!

WHAT SHOULD YOU KNOW

When an infant is born, it has between 100 and 200 Billion brain stem cells or neurons waiting to develop into brain cells and they will make about one thousand trillion brain connections (1,000,000,000,000,000) before they begin trimming or losing them from neglect or nonuse. After a child is born, there will be no new brain cells made to replace damaged or unused cells which die and are never replaced. (Contrast this with the thousands of skin cells, blood cells or hair which are created every day throughout our lives to routinely replace those which are damaged or die.) The brain cells at birth will make brain connections that will become the pathways for a child to learn later in life. An infant’s brain cells will actually multiply at rates reaching 250,000 per minute and by age 5 a child’s brain will reach 90% of its adult weight!!

When a child is born, the primary brain cells that have developed are those associated with survival; ie., breathing, eating, and crying. There are “critical windows of development”, as an example, if an infant’s eyes are covered during the first six (6) months of its life, the infant will be blind for the rest of its life as the brain cells which were originally expected to assist with vision will have been left unused for too long and they will either develop into some other portion of the brain or die all together from lack of use. The part or the brain which is last to develop is the outer cortex wherein a child learns empathy and to love and share and care for their fellow human beings. Unfortunately, children who are not raised to feel safe, secure and loved are developing very few brain cells in the outer cortex regarding caring, sharing or conscience, but are concentrating mostly on aggressive behavior that they deem necessary to obtain their food and other survival skills which are more like the animal kingdom which is dominated by “bullies” and are governed by the “survival of the fittest” doctrine.

Children can be held and made to feel loved and secure or they can be neglected and ignored with the mistaken ideas and mentality of their parents or caregivers that they are too young to learn while they are infants and it will be easier to spend time with them and teach them when they get older. Unfortunately, children who are mere infants are “imprinting” and learning at an incredible rate from the moment that they arrive in this world. It has been proven that children whose mothers played music or sang regularly to them before they were born readily recognize the music after they are born and actually prefer it to other music.

Parents and caregivers need only follow a few basic things to actively stimulate their child’s brain and avoid the “use it or lose it” concept of their brain’s development. The purpose of the TEDDY PROJECT is to educate parents and caregivers of the recent research and development which shows that the age-old methods that parents used decades ago of holding, carrying, touching, reading and singing to infants is far better than dumping them off in front of the TV or babysitter to raise and educate them at the very critical first 3 years of their life. Additionally, children who are exposed to violence are prone to repeat that behavior when they are older themselves and the vicious cycle begins all over again.

It is the dream of the TEDDY PROJECT to provide educational books and literature to the public by placing information in hospitals, doctor’s offices and county health departments as well as with day care centers and child care providers. Additionally, that new parents be given good reliable information and directed to resource material to assist in teaching them about early childhood and brain development and lastly to furnish new born children with a Masonic Teddy Bear that shows that a Mason cares for children.